I don’t know… I think directly after mass shootings is the perfect time to discuss mental health. Specifically, the mental health of NRA leadership and conservative politicians. Einstein described insanity as doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results. How many times can we keep pouring more and more guns out there for any person with a grudge or a chip on his or her shoulder to collect and discharge at anyone who disagreed with them on twitter? This isn’t a mental health issue, it’s a societal one. We are becoming more and more isolated as individuals, we are more plugged into our IPhones and our computers than we are our families and communities. We can get all the information in the world at the touch of a button, but only select the information that makes us happier, not more informed. We all have begun living in ideological and political bubblesecho-chambers. And then we wonder, “why is that guy shooting people?” Maybe it’s a symptom of a broken society with a suicide fetish?﻿

Is it just me or did other people think the worst thing about the Bill Cosby Coke commerical wasn’t the Bill Cosby was a date rapist but that he was pushing New Coke, a vastly inferior soda that almost destroyed Coke as we know it? So Bill did two thing horrible I guess.﻿

This is extremely narrow minded. Government is the worst equipped to help with an individuals mental health. “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help… lets see my options are prison for you, steal from you, abuse you…” Using government is not charity and it is not helpful.﻿

A few things. First I loved the segment, but I believe anyone who murders someone has a mental health issue. Secondly I hope whoever is elected puts a effective amount of focus on the mental health system. Right now it is difficult to talk to someone about your problems, and all they want to do is pump you full of drugs and lock you up for 72 hours.﻿

Thank you so much for this segment. Most people–average citizens, news reporters, politicians–are so quick to casually make a link between mental illness and violence without even thinking about (1) is it even an accurate or fair assessment, or (2) what damage does it do to people who suffer with mental illness? The truth is, it makes people feel better to say that only people who “aren’t right in the head” would commit an act of mass murder. It’s a misguided belief that is just not borne out in the evidence, and even more so, further stigmatizes a population that is already so vulnerable.

John Oliver has a huge, very attentive audience. He is using that fact for the most positive ends, and I really respect him for that. He is such an important voice for so many voiceless in our society. He is moving people into action and changing the world, even if we don’t realize it yet. Thank you to him and all his staff.﻿

1) take a drink whenever he says “the point is” or “that is a FACT!” 2) take two drinks whenever it’s mentioned that he is British 3) take three drinks whenever he tricks you with a graphic – wrong country, wrong flag, etc 4) do whatever you want; I’m a youtube comment, not a cop.﻿

I worked in the mental health field for two years and quit. One of the reasons I quit was because the system was failing so badly that it was a real source of genuine anger for me, and that is not the right reaction because the people you are working with can sense that. But I have to disagree with John a little bit here. Yes, the “vast majority” of gun violence in this country is not committed by people who we think of as schizophrenic or “insane.” However, since the majority of gun violence in this country occurs in communities where people are very unlikely to receive help, I don’t think that it’s fair to say they don’t have a mental illness; we really wouldn’t know. It’s probably unlikely that, in Chicago for example, every shooting is perpetrated by someone with a mental illness like the guy in Oregon. On the other hand, people in those communities very likely have what we call PTSD at a much higher rate than any other civilian community. If you want to talk about something no one talks about, by the way, let’s talk about how many kids in those communities are raped and/or beat by adults in their own families. Now tell me you don’t think they have a mental illness called PTSD, John.

And let me just say one more thing. I didn’t appreciate your abuse of statistics, John. The majority of mass shootings during these past few decades of increased mass shooting violence have had mental illness or some other handicapped. The Newton kid was diagnosed with autism and depression. The Columbine guys were on meds. The Oregon guy was on meds. The Aurora guy was mentally ill despite his plea being rejected. Do we really need to go on here?

And one last thing. Yes, politicians may be using mental health to “steer the discussion away from guns.” Politicians have been and always will be wankers. Take away the inner cities statistically, or do something to pull them out of that pathetic circle of violence they’re stuck in…. Destigmatize mental illness so that it becomes normal for communities to deal with it openly and with a massive network of professionals and volunteers. And gun violence in this country will sink through the floor.﻿

Everything is a mental issue nowadays. I realize that there are serious cases where treatment is required but nowadays it seems like if someone does want to do something or fails at something (school, work, home life) they can just blame it on a mental illness.﻿

That’s the problem with John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, John Stewart and their ilk. They seek to solve issues through the analysis of data rather than emotional hyperbole. I mean seriously…how am I supposed to stay mad at those America hating lefties now?﻿

The problem with the federal government running a personal mental health program is that governments are the worst at representing the individual. In short, the government cannot successfully run these programs. Second, it’s not their job. Mental health issues are as varied as cancer cases. Not all mental health cases have violent expressions, but many do. In this Post Modern era, the scenario of actually diagnosing who is “sick” by only secular means by a subjective meter has presented more problems. Blaming violence on mental health isn’t the answer, but removing one variable (tool of violence) from an equation doesn’t solve the problem.﻿

As someone that’s been struggling with OCD since I was 12 [I’m 22 now], and being in-and-out of therapy and psych wards for years on end, Thank you for bringing this up in such an eloquent, thought-out and well constructed manner. This meant alot, John Oliver. Thanks.﻿

I might be confused about this but I am not sure how gun control would help anything… The people who would want to murder other people for fun must be sociopathic in some ways and those who want to kill will get the guns anyways… As someone who lives in a place where everyone has guns I see absolutely no shootings take place because everyone can protect themselves..﻿

This episode of the show is terrific. Highlighted the problem in a real and clear way, suggested some solutions for starting to improve the situation and calling out Dr. Phil. Like with the FIFA state of things, maybe good can come out of all of this.

As much as I love the fact that this segment is bringing to light the country’s very real mental health problem that politicians have been ignoring for the past since-the-country-was-founded, please do not try and belittle the argument about gun control by bringing to light Republican morons that only get media airtime because they might say some more crazy shit that will keep people from changing the channel. There are plenty of moderates and Democrats that are not in favor of total gun control, and the idea that mass shootings are not the direct result of an ailing mind is ignorance.

Let’s skip the discussion on mental illness, and look at the heart of what you really wanted to talk about: guns. There are people out there that do not want the citizens of the nation to have access to firearms. The nation was founded upon the belief that weapons, and access to weapons, would be necessary for the people to be able to rise up against their own government if that was the appropriate action. As the weapons of the national military increases in size and scale, the people would need access to weapons of equal capabilities – after all, the American *rebellion* was nearly quelled by the British army after laws were legally passed that required colonists hand over their firearms. Of course, we all doubt that Washington and the other founders of the nation had WMDs in mind, but at the same time, the scale is irrelevant to the argument.

Of course people with anger management or mental health problems should not be allowed to possess weapons. People in this nation often confuse guns as the only available weapon because it takes little training or skill to use the weapon to minimum efficiency; however, someone that has had prior training with, say, a combat knife, could effectively murder just as many people as they could with a firearm. After all, knives don’t need bullets.

In England, the paranoia against killings and murder has gotten so high that they have actually banned almost all forms of weapons, including improvised weapons such as plastic knives. This still doesn’t stop England from having one of the highest violent crime rates in the world, and as much as the British census bureau wishes to put spin on the matter, most national leaders know that they also have one of the highest murder rates in the world. Essentially, the Brits put all deaths into three categories: homicide, suicide, and natural causes. If the police cannot find a suspect or a murder weapon, then the death is automatically not counted as a homicide, even if the death is clearly not natural and not a suicide. In America, we do the opposite: if it is clearly not a natural death, and it does not appear to be a suicide, we count it as a homicide until there is enough proof to declare it a suicide. Suicides by gunshot wound are also counted in the statistics for yearly deaths by gun in America, but not in several other countries, including England.

You’re right. Stupid people that don’t know much about weapons or, well, anything else, really, will always fall back on whatever convenient excuse they can to draw attention away from the issue. But that doesn’t mean that people that support guns share their feelings; I guess that is why the majority of gun owners are not members of and often vocally show discontent with the NRA. And as much as gun control advocates love to press the issue of gun control whenever they can, they often do not list compelling arguments in favor of gun control or engage in the same practices as their opponents. You can list all of the statistics you want, you can drone on and on about mental health, but the main proponent of gun control is as follows: there is a large, very large, number of people in this country that want access to all sorts of weaponry in the case that they feel compelled to rebel against their government should ever the time arise when the government no longer serves the will of the people. Many of these people will never surrender their firearms for this very reason. You need to convince them that this will never be necessary again for them to surrender their firearms.

And if you want to talk about statistics, here’s a good one for you: out of all of the guns owned by all governments and people in the world, here is how ownership is broken down: less than 1% of all firearms are owned by criminal organizations, less than 5% by known terror groups, less than 7% by known militia groups (there are legitimate militia that operate around the world), and around 33% are owned by actual military organizations. The remaining 56% of all firearms around the world are owned by average citizens. There are around 875 million guns owned worldwide. U.S. citizens own about 88 million of those guns. That means that 490 million guns are owned by average people, and that U.S. citizens, which includes self-appointment and non-recognized militia groups, own 18% of civilian-owned guns worldwide. 88 million guns.

Based on those statistics and the logic of, “Guns are what cause gun violence”, then this whole fucking country, this whole fucking planet, would be filled with stir-crazy gun nuts shooting up every single thing they see move.

Guns are not what causes gun violence. Just like how idiot Republican pundits and puppets try to use mental health as a scapegoat, Democrats need to stop doing the exact same shit as a scapegoat for admitting that they don’t fucking know how to fix the problem of mass shootings either. They might want to start by putting their money with their mouths are and sponsoring more of those mental health programs they talk about supporting, because rest assured, even in Democrat-controlled states, my autistic little brother is still not going to get the help that he needs, and you fucks that use the gun debate to avoid different issues and spout your mouths off without knowing shit are really starting to drive this country to a prompt demise.﻿

I am grateful for this segment, and I agree with almost everything. The one thing I do not is saying that the mass shootings are not a part of the mental health debate. No mentally healthy person goes into a place with the goal of killing as many people as possible and most likely planning to die in the end. That is beyond any realm of normalcy. But that is more on the social end of the issue. People feeling broken, unfixable, or fearing getting help because of the social stigmas, then brooding on their thoughts and getting more and more lost inside themselves.﻿

Thank you for taking the time to talk about this! I have depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia and its extremely frustrating because my family does not have the money for many treatment options, leaving my options severely limited. Like, its hard to find a psychiatrist that is affordable and its hard to find a program that’s not completely booked up. We don’t have the money for me to stay in a residential hospital (which I probably need) so we’re trying therapy. I have my first therapist appointment today. Hopefully it works out well! I also worry about my future a lot because I’m never going to be able to live by myself due to my mental health and I’m going to have to spend a lot of money on therapy and medication. I’m also gonna need a strong support system. I also have a strong fear of getting killed by police sometime in the future because I’m having a breakdown. Its all just really hard. Thank you for caring though. It means the world to me.﻿

I feel like John is talking about different people, who still are mentally ill, but hes not talking about these spree killers. The term Mentally Ill is an extremely broad term, and this segment doesn’t touch into that.﻿

John Oliver, even the New York Times has admitted that gun control will not prevent mass shootings. The majority of these people that suddenly snap have clean records. Of course the New York Times probably thinks banning guns all together is the solution, but that isn’t going to happen.﻿

Ben Carson too?! He’s supposed to be a fucking neurosurgeon, and if I remember right he’s done a hemispherectomy from which the patient recovered fully! Yet he spreads the mental illness stigma and thinks being gay is a choice. What?

Just goes to show that you can be good at cutting up a thing and/or putting it back together without really knowing what’s going on. As long as you memorize what part goes where you’ll have no problem fixing a car either and you don’t have to know why it goes there.﻿

Fucktards wanna debate gun violence in the comments, like his two throwaway remarks about it at the beginning and at the end were all they got out of this video. It’s a travesty that people who have different experiences of the world, undesirable genes, or have been repeatedly victimized in their lives are treated this way. It’s racism and sexism and kicking someone when they’re down all rolled up into one.

So if you ignored the best show John Oliver ever made because you disagreed with him about a different issue, gtfo of the comments.﻿

6:00 This is par for the course for Vegas. Not too many years back, Sheriff Moran was elected on the single platform of getting the sex workers “off the streets”. The day after his election, women on this list, along with their families were literally herded up and bused one way to southern Cal. No kidding, folks. In the eighties.﻿

My friend works for a center that houses and provides therapy for sexually abusive children, all of them have some type of mental illness and have harmed others in a sexual way. Often if the kids insurance runs out or if they turn of age they are released as if they have completed their sentence and been rehabilitated. If a child has not been rehabilitated and is released they are supposed to register as sex offenders or continue treatment but that doesn’t happen because the doctors release the children as rehabilitated. They save their success numbers and make it seem like the kids have been “cured”, when really they are releasing dangerous and sick kids back into society and usually back to the situation that led them to the center. There have also been instances of abuse like a caregiver who broke a kids arm and tried to blame it on another child. Her colleagues backed up her story until the surveillance video showed her shoving the child so hard when he hit the door as he was falling his arm broke. Almost all of these kids have also been the victims of sexual abuse, it’s disturbing to think that they are released back into the abusive situation when released but they also have to deal with abuse and neglect while at the center. So sad.﻿

I know you guys in the US having a problem with guns and everything but you clearly need more restriction on them. Just take exemple of, for exemple, here in Canada. We can’t have fully automatic weapon. you can’t have gun without a class and some very high restriction. You want to buy a gun? Have you divorced recently? Have you been in a bankruptcy recently? Have you lost your job recently? If you answer yes to any of these question, you won’t be able to buy a hunting weapon. You need to take a 2 days class on how to act with weapons too. And guess what! No, bad people can’t buy weapon like they want. You know why? Because if MUCH more harder to access weapon for them too! This is what kind of solution the US need. Having a gun isn’t a right (even if your WAY TOO OLD AND NO MORE ACTUAL FOR 2015 constitution says it), it’s a privilege!﻿

First off, really glad someone is talking about mental health because the system is awful.

That said, saying that most people who commit gun violence are not mentally ill is TRUE, however, on the topic of mass shootings, which is what sparks gun control, 100% of mass shooters are mentally ill. Not to mention that none of the proposed gun control measures outside of the unconstitutional and logistically impossible outlaw and seizure of all firearms, would have prevented the Oregon shooting.

Mass shooters are almost exclusively male and male suicide rates are through the roof. Stop becoming such an anti-male society and strive for true equality rather than overcompensation. We need to cut the crap with this “everyone is a winner” bullshit and start teaching children conflict resolution because these people just can’t handle the real world when it hits them. The media also needs to take more responsibility and stop showing the name and pictures of these killers on the news. Other people who feel rejected see this as an easy way to both make the world pay for how it has wronged them and make everyone know who they are. Each shooter inspires the next and it is snowballing. The TV shooter was mad about Charleston and the Oregon shooter was inspired by the TV shooter. Media is completely responsible for this occurrence becoming trendy and they love it. Every time this happens people flock to the news and their websites so they would never want this to stop.﻿

This is an important segment and all, but one thing I must say something about is that we aren’t dodging talks about gun control after a mass shooting, we are dodging mental health talks. Do we need some reform when it comes to guns? Yes, but not the type that John Oliver is going to want, my thoughts on the matter involve getting rid of draconian laws that just change the look of a rifle and these dumb ass laws about magazine capacity. We do need, however, back round checks for mental health on guns, along with many other things. Yes, the mass majority of people with mental health problems are non aggressive, but people with metal health issues who ARE violent are the ones who are killing people and that statistic about “fewer than 5% of 120,000 gun related killings were perpetrated by people with mental illness.” is probably wrong, considering that we do not know how many of the killers may have some diagnosed mental health issue. Also, even if that statistic was true, the people killing other people with guns are not responsible law abiding citizens, the criminals are the ones killing people with more than likely illegal guns that were brought into this country via places like Mexico, who, by the way, is a country that has banned guns. So, don’t tell me that talking about mental health after a mass shooting is dodging talks about gun control.﻿

Therapy is good for people who need it, but that doesn’t mean the therapists are good or even know what they are doing. I have met several therapists who actually make the problems worse rather than helping. It also doesn’t help that the DSM is full of made up illnesses by the pharmaceutical companies making normal human emotions and reactions into illnesses. True story. But let’s not forget that there is a difference between a troubled person and a real mental illness like alzheimers.﻿

As someone with multiple depressive and anxiety disorders, I am so grateful for this segment. People look at me like I’m some sort of freak whenever I try to speak about my illnesses, as if I’m weak or I’m about to grab a knife and start stabbing them. The fact is, I’m simply a survivor of childhood abuse and I’d never hurt anyone. I know far too well how it feels.

I have lost three jobs due to employers not wanting to work with me regarding my panic attacks. My family is extremely unsupportive, which makes things very difficult because I’ve yet to get the means to move out. I have to attend therapy and take my medication in secret or risk losing my home. But, of course, the government only looks at the fact that I live at home and assumes that I’m given everything.

There’s basically no lifeline for young adults like me. I’m trying everything I know, but at 19, I’m staring down the barrel of having my bank account in the red by several hundred dollars because of how expensive therapy is. However, if I go without it, I’ll run a high risk of becoming extremely suicidal within a month. I’m just so lost and I feel like I can’t win. Meanwhile, I’m still the butt of plenty of public jokes and throwaway discussions about how “guns aren’t bad, people are.” (As if being sick makes me a bad person.)

I’d just like to thank John for bringing this to attention. It’s a very real problem and I know that I am (unfortunately) nowhere near alone in it.﻿

If mental health is the cause of mass shooting, why are they not as important around the world? Mental health is common around the world, though no gun control laws is present in the US only! Also, putting gun control laws helps making sure that people with mental illness are not able to get the guns.﻿

I completely agree that we need to do something drastic about mental health, but I wouldn’t say it’s an excuse to dodge the conversation on gun control. We know gun control doesn’t work, we tried it with New York and it failed miserably. Unfortunately I don’t know what the right answer is, but a ban on guns is certainly not the answer.﻿

A lot of those people who would’ve otherwise been in federal institutions also ended up on the street as homeless people. Many street homeless have mental health issues that have never been properly addressed, rather than just financial or even addiction issues (though these generally follow).﻿

you have to strike a balance, background checks, 5-10 day waiting periods are a great start for creating an effectively regulated gun market, getting rid of it all together is not an option.

you cannot take away the rights of people because of the poor choices of a few people, thats tantamount to banning cars because of people who eat and drink alcohol and text all at the same time.

but we do need to enforce the laws we have and make our country a safer place. banning things like supressors and high cap mags wont make anyone safer, meth and coke is banned in the US yet we have a large problem with it, banning something like that wont solve anything. you need to regulate it or it will never change.﻿

There’s a mistake in this. He says most people that commit gun crimes don’t have mental health problems. The reason is it’s because it’s caused by gang violence. Gangs and mass shooters aren’t going to go away with the same solutions. Most mass shooters, however, have mental health problems. To group all kinds of killers and believe that they’re the same won’t stop mass shootings.﻿

While I agree that putting the blame of mass shootings squarely on mental illness is wrong, it is equally wrong to claim that gun control is the only factor involved. These things are not so simply you can blame it on one thing. Several things come together to cause something like a mass shooting, and mental illness is often involved as well. Now of course this doesn’t mean that everyone with mental illnesses is a potential murderer, since mental illness is a very broad term brought together to describe multiple disorders. Should we get better mental care for people with mental illnesses? Yes. Should we also have tougher controls and restrict access to guns? Yes. While we are at it we should also get better at detecting, preventing and stopping bullying, as that is often also a factor as victims seek revenge on their bullies. All I am saying, this is a complex issue, there is no lone culprit in this and I get annoyed whenever any tries to claim that, no matter what they try to blame.﻿

“the vast majority of mentally ill people are non-violent and the vast majority of gun violence is committed by non-mentally ill people. … So the fact that we tend to only discuss mental illness in a mass shooting context is deeply misleading.”

Is this the same for mass shooters? Its true that most gun homicides in the US are gang/drug related and crimes of passion. But whats the percentage when it comes to only mass shootings(Aurora, Newtown, Virginia tech etc.)?

What I think is that our gun problem is a violence problem, our culture is obsessed with it. Combine that with poverty, unemployment, high healthcare cost, no mental health care and any other number socioeconomic problems in this country and youre bound to get bloody.